No valid excuses for WBAI

These days. more than ever, the air around WBAI and Pacifica is densely populated with WHY?

Earlier today (Sunday, March 25th), Carolyn Birden added a timely one to Nalini's RadioWaves forum, a list that is beginning to resemble the infamous Blue Board before R. Paul rendered it totally obsolete, but maintains worthwhile traffic. 

I should note that Pacifica's Washington D.C. station, WPFW had live coverage of the event in that city and I hear that a music host on one of the other stations brought the integrated his music with the event. Also, Carolyn's question echos some of Jim Dingeman's and, surely, a few unasked ones. Here is what Carolyn asked: 

"First Things First 

What can our PNB members from WBAI tell us about why WBAI did not cover the March for our Lives in New York? 

Who is responsible for that?"

  My response:

Carolyn, I think this is indeed another case of first things first… 

These years, that "first" is inevitably what they see in their selfies, but the comfort they once may have derived from that now requires an imagination that years have eroded. These self-deluding cling-ons have at last seen and vaguely begun to acknowledge the rays of enlightenment—they are no longer able to ignore the bouncing reality check and its wake of dribble.

They have at last recognized, though not openly admitted how volatile their imagined turf is. Most of them—the worst of the lot—want a remnant of listeners to believe that their initial attraction to WBAI was Lew Hill's visionary upgrade of American radio broadcasting. As if to convince themselves of that, they will occasionally—but mostly during fund drives—boast of working in a commercial-free environment. This, ironically, while they hawk their own wares, services, and bogus—sometimes never delivered—products.

These are not commercials, they insist, but rather essential solutions to long life, wealth, world peace and racial harmony. Purchase a straight-off-the-internet $5 DVD for $125 and rest assured that you have brought peace of financial fulfillment within reach; gulp a splash of tap water from a little overpriced bottle and, poof!, your mother's cancer will scurry away; buy Null's Survival Kit and defy Kim Jung-un, etc.

To put it bluntly, WBAI is largely operated by misguided propagandists, scam artists, and other idiots who, driven by bulbous egos and fabricated self-evaluation, will say anything to maintain their access—directly or not—to Mister Microphone™. "First thing” used to be to flick that light switch on and enlighten the people "out there in the dark", as my friend Gloria Swanson so memorably stated. It is what Pacifica stations routinely did so commendably, but that requires a high degree of integrity, an open mind and honesty. None of these attributes identify the current shell of WBAI or, for that matter, Pacifica Radio. The Pacifica National Board consistently abuses its option to retire to an "Executive (closed) session, thus embracing secrecy when openness is called for, thus deliberately keeping the rest of us in the dark and further undermining trust.

The opportunists underestimate the intelligence and judgement of WBAI’s listenership, but not that of management. As listeners tuned out by the hundreds and WBAI/Pacifica continued to sink to a lower level—the unprincipled donned extra-strength rose-colored glasses and intensified their game.

In an earlier response to Carolyn on the RadioWaves list, I suggested that being a PNB member from WBAI has no meaning. She disagrees: 

"Chris, I respectfully disagree that being a PNB member has no meaning:  four votes on the PNB are four votes to support a station or not; to allow it to continue in what must surely be a planned demolition, or not; to salvage it and reform the programming into something sustainable, or not."   

That's a good point, but when the Pacifica National Board itself is laced with corruption and ineptitude, being a member of that board has lost whatever prestige it once had. 

Today, association with WBAI and/or its fellow gamers is the M on Lorre’s back.   —Chris